Development Of Urban Parks Research Articles

The Genesis of the Proximate Principle in the Development of Urban Parks in England

There is a willingness by many people to pay more for property located close to parks and open space than for property that does not offer this amenity. This process of ‘capitalisation’ of park land into increased property values is termed the ‘proximate principle’. The paper traces the central role of the proximate principle in persuading local governments to invest resources into England’s early urban parks. The first purpose-built urban parks in England were conceived as private enclaves for the wealthy. Their primary purpose was to create premium values for properties around them and, hence, enhance the profitability of residential dwellings to the developer. The earliest forms of these private enclaves were ‘squares’. The evolution of the principle to larger park areas occurred in 1811 with John Nash and the commitment to develop Regent’s Park in London and its adjacent Nash terraces that were targeted at the wealthy. In 1841, Richard Yates developed Prince’s Park in Liverpool, using the proximate principle which had resulted in the highly profitable real estate development at Regent’s Park. He hired Joseph Paxton to design it. Its success resulted in a decision by the commissioners of the nearby new city of Birkenhead to hire Paxton and incorporate the financing principle in the construction of Birkenhead Park, which was the world’s first municipal park to be funded with local taxpayers’ resources. Birkenhead Park was the landmark project at which the proximate principle was transitioned from the private to the public sector.

プレーパーク活動から捉えた都市公園の活性化に関する研究

In this study, we conducted a survey on play park by interviewing three groups that have organized play park activities at urban parks in the Kansai region, in order to find conditions to be required for the implementation of play park activities at urban parks and how they affect the invigoration of city parks. The results showed; 1 The cooperative relations with museums or other citizen groups such as a park cooperative, which could serve as a bridge between administrative authorities and local residents, were quite useful for play park activities at urban parks. 2 The effects to be brought by those play park activities in terms of the urban park invigoration included; the development of urban parks as a core center for local activities, the promotion of local activities, the encouragement for the residents to utilize existing facilities and set up new facilities in urban parks, the active usage of the overall urban parks in the region, and the creation of a new design to be proposed.

A Home Away from Home: Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, and the Rural Cemetery Movement

Much has been written in recent years about 19th-century rural cemeteries. Beginning with the establishment of Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery in 1831, these rural retreats rapidly replaced existing church burial grounds and by the 1850s had led to the development of urban parks and garden suburbs as well. Like urban parks and garden suburbs, rural cemeteries were meant to provide relief from the crowding, grid-iron regularity, and grittiness of the country's rapidly expanding industrial centers by embracing the openness, spontaneity, and verdant freshness of nature. Trees, shrubs, and flowering plants punctuated and enhanced the gentle contours of the land; lakes and roadways reflected and extended nature's beauties; manmade structures, too, nestled into the undulating rhythms of the land, exhibiting a oneness with the varied and carefully orchestrated richness of the natural setting. The garden suburb and the rural cemetery shared a further distinction of being located on the periphery of existing cities and were frequently entered through imposing gates that effectively announced their separateness from the surrounding terrain. Even more fundamental, however, but not fully understood, is the fact that at the core of the creation of both the rural cemetery and the garden suburb was a desire to emphasize and consolidate the American family by providing it with a new physical setting and a new set of symbols. By the Civil War, virtually every large American city had a rural cemetery, where its dead were buried in ample family lots that were adorned with imposing family monuments, and set off from other family lots by elaborate iron fences or stone copings similar to those that edged the family home.

A Home Away from Home: Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, and the Rural Cemetery Movement

Much has been written in recent years about 19th-century rural cemeteries. Beginning with the establishment of Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery in 1831, these rural retreats rapidly replaced existing church burial grounds and by the 1850s had led to the development of urban parks and garden suburbs as well. Like urban parks and garden suburbs, rural cemeteries were meant to provide relief from the crowding, grid-iron regularity, and grittiness of the country's rapidly expanding industrial centers by embracing the openness, spontaneity, and verdant freshness of nature. Trees, shrubs, and flowering plants punctuated and enhanced the gentle contours of the land; lakes and roadways reflected and extended nature's beauties; manmade structures, too, nestled into the undulating rhythms of the land, exhibiting a oneness with the varied and carefully orchestrated richness of the natural setting. The garden suburb and the rural cemetery shared a further distinction of being located on the periphery of existing cities and were frequently entered through imposing gates that effectively announced their separateness from the surrounding terrain. Even more fundamental, however, but not fully understood, is the fact that at the core of the creation of both the rural cemetery and the garden suburb was a desire to emphasize and consolidate the American family by providing it with a new physical setting and a new set of symbols. By the Civil War, virtually every large American city had a rural cemetery, where its dead were buried in ample family lots that were adorned with imposing family monuments, and set off from other family lots by elaborate iron fences or stone copings similar to those that edged the family home.